"It may take me just as long to forgive you as it took us to make what you just took away," Glenn Davis sings to open Waves & Webs, the debut LP the Way Yes frontman released last month on Gold Robot Records. It's a heartbreaking opening volley, and the gut punches keep on coming as Davis grapples with a 2014 divorce that left him reeling. Waves & Webs is the Columbus songwriter's attempt to put the heartbreak behind him.

Joel Oliphint

"It may take me just as long to forgive youas it took us to make what you just took away," Glenn Davis sings to open Waves & Webs, the debut LP the Way Yes frontman released last month on Gold Robot Records. It's a heartbreaking opening volley, and the gut punches keep on coming as Davis grapples with a 2014 divorce that left him reeling. Waves & Webs is the Columbus songwriter's attempt to put the heartbreak behind him.

You may not hear a more emotionally honest record this year. Davis cycles through the various stages of a doomed relationship, from the plainspoken pleading of "Come Back" ("Please come back, please don't go/ You know things about me that nobody knows"), the attempts at salvaging on "Say Something" ("I'm willing to give up everything / Just tell what it is you need") and the desire to just get it all over with on "Speed it Up" ("If you wanna step away, speed it up then").

While Davis' Lost World EP was more lyrically imagistic and emphasized coping and survival, Waves & Webs pairs painful, blunt admissions with the type of music Davis turns to as a security blanket - bands like Fleetwood Mac, ELO and Joan Armatrading. Though Davis recorded the album himself, with some vocal help from Counterfeit Madison, the record isn't rough or lo-fi. It's full of smooth, sparkly textures. The keyboard and synth on "Speed it Up" recall vintage '80s production of someone like Bruce Hornsby, while "Say Something" trades electronic sounds for a simply strummed, nylon-stringed acoustic.

In lesser hands, the act of crawling through the wreckage of a failed relationship could come across as wallowing, but Davis turns his emotional carnage into a thing of beauty, and his quirky vocal delivery (think Kermit the Frog meets Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig) keeps things from ever feeling too oppressive. "I apologize for how I sing," Davis says on "Every Song." No apology necessary.